English Composition

For your fiction essay, develop a two page typed essay on the following topic. Your essay should be double-spaced, use 12 pt. Times New Roman font, and include your name, the date, and the course in the upper right hand corner. See the How to Write Papers tab in the Start Here module for more information about how to format your paper, how to form your argument, and how I grade the papers.

Choose a short story that does not have a sample essay provided in the book and that was not included in our required reading and write an essay in which you provide an analysis of it, focusing on showing how the literary devices present in the story help support your interpretation.

Your job in this essay is to provide an analysis of this story for your reader, to show the reader something about the story that is not immediately apparent on first reading it, and to show the reader how the elements of the story (ie, the figurative devices in it) help establish that hidden meaning.

You should NOT do ANY outside research for this essay! Do not look online to “get ideas” or read any sample essays or summaries. Definitely do not copy or quote from any outside materials. Your only quotes should come from the short story itself, and all other material in your essay should be your own words and ideas.

Some of the major problems that can come up in this sort of essay are:

A.    You need to be sure that you have a solid thesis, that you have something specific that you are trying to show to the reader, and that that thesis is something that you can PROVE (that it is an argument, for example). Oftentimes, writers will begin with a thesis that is either not arguable (This story by Nathaniel Hawthorne is really neat — how are you going to prove that?) or that is based on the storys surface level meaning (Nathaniel Hawthornes “The Birth-Mark” is a story about a woman with a birth-mark OK. And?)

B.    You should make sure that the things you are pointing out about the story help prove/explain your thesis. Dont point out every literary/figurative device that you can find in the story. Point out only those that help you make your case to your reader and prove your thesis.

C.    You should not structure your essay around the structure of the story (this means discussing the beginning of the story first, then the middle, then the end). Doing this encourages you to paraphrase a lot of material that might not really be necessary for proving your thesis. Just dive right into the parts that best prove your thesis, no matter what part of the story they are in.

D.    A general error to work on avoiding is to remember that paraphrasing is NOT the same as analysis. Telling me what a story is about is not the same thing as telling me what it means (or how it makes that meaning).

This essay is due by 3 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 1. Your essay should be submitted on this tab in Canvas as an attachment in order to preserve the formatting and should be in either doc or docx format.

This essay is worth 20% of your overall grade, so make sure you try your hardest to do well on it! Email me at [email protected] or send me a message via Canvas with any questions.

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